Levens School

Levens Lego Expo 2019

 in Skiddaw by

Year 2, 3 and 4 children have been working on a special Lego project in collaboration with C-STEM this term. Tim Farron MP came to see and hear what the children have been working on. Over the past 10 weeks they have been building different computer controllable Lego robots each with particular mechanisms that move, rotate and roam around. Taking inspiration from the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, the 5 teams have been building their own moon bases incorporating areas for energy, water and air capsules. They also rebuilt and modified one of the robots and programmed it ready to demonstrate to visitors. This project has been a wonderful springboard for true teamwork and the children have showed resilience when things haven’t gone to plan. They have been patient with one another and discovered new strengths and talents in each other.

Tim said: “It was great to see some brilliant teamwork and some real imagination from the pupils in their designs, thinking of the things you’d need to have to sustain life on the moon. They also had some really clever use of robotics and computers in their projects, proving that Levens Primary School is home to some of our budding engineers of the future.”

Thank you very much to Tim Farron for coming along to view our work and to Fran Ward of C-STEM for including us in this amazing project.

Open water swimming on Lake Windermere

 in Scafell / Whole School by

All our year 5 & 6 pupils enjoyed an amazing time with Waterwise this week; learning how to keep themselves safe in and around water.  After a discussion about identifying hazards when openwater swimming; we were soon in the water playing games, including rescuing ducks!

Scafell’s top tips for swimming in open water are:

  1. Only swim with an experienced or responsible swimmer;
  2. Wear a swim hat so that you are spotted by boats;
  3. Never go into water to help someone – find help!!

As well as learning such important life-saving skills; we laughed lots and lots.

After we dried off, we enjoyed a lovely picnic and explored Fell Foot Park!

Sports Day

 in Bowfell / Scafell / Skiddaw by

We had our annual celebration of sport. With everyone spilt into four teams, we ran, we jumped, we kicked footballs and we wanged wellies.

It was a close fought affair with only 3 points between first and second but purple team were the winners.

Toddler Taster Summer Fun!

 in Bowfell / Whole School by

It was lovely to see so many little ones (and their grown ups too!) enjoying our final Toddler Taster session of the academic year this morning. The drizzle and clouds didn’t spoil our Summer Fun themed morning where children enjoyed games of hook a duck, blowing bubbles, painting rainbow bread, making sand dough pictures and playing in our sensory ice cream tuff tray – just to name a few of the activities we had on offer.

#Takethemaskchallenge!

 in Scafell / Whole School by

Scafell have been exploring the subject of climate change and the impact of human activity on the planet.  As part of the United Nations World Environment Day on June 5th, children in years 5+6 took the mask challenge – this was a social media campaign to design and make creative masks related to this year’s theme on air pollution and make a pledge to change one aspect of your life to help reduce our carbon footprint.

Here are some of our fabulous creations and promises to change.

We have also created amazing speeches inspired by Greta Thunberg, the 15year old Swedish activist; wrote persuasive poems encouraging people to do more to protect our planet; led assemblies to raise awareness with the rest of the school and our parents; and considered what more we could do as a school to be more environmentally friendly.

One change we will be making soon is reducing the amount of plastic use in our school by changing how our system for supplying milk for our infant children.

Exploring Heaves Farm

 in Scafell / Skiddaw by

Skiddaw and Scafell class enjoyed a fascinating time exploring farming today at Heaves Farm. We walked up briskly and arrived perfectly timed to be whisked away to the far reaches of the farm. We learnt all about the ways farmers and their animals provide for us – such as chickens, sheep, cows and pigs. We’ve walked inside the milking parlour and the cow shed, watched hour-old calves and learnt how robotics, machinery and IT keep the farmer in touch with their animals 24/7. There were also a myriad of other interesting farming and country related stations where we met spinners, veg growers, butchers, vets, sheep shearers, sheep dogs and their owners and dry stone wallers to name just a few. Sincere thanks to all the members and volunteers of the Westmorland County Agricultural Society and Roger, Carole and Gary Mason for opening their farm up to us. We’ve come back to school full of facts and insights into how farming touches everyone’s life everyday.

Outdoor Learning with Skiddaw Class

 in Skiddaw / Whole School by

What a wonderful afternoon we enjoyed in our woodland area.  We spent our time developing a range of skills in the outdoors including problem solving, communication, resilience, negotiation.   We exercised our creative talents making small-world environments and by creating images using only natural materials.  We also enjoyed a treasure hunt!

 

Rugby Festival at Kirkby Lonsdale Rugby Club

 in Scafell / Whole School by

This week, Scafell were lucky enough to be invited to the annual rugby festival at Kirkby Lonsdale Rugby Club! Despite being a bit dubious about all of the rain in the morning, it brightened up into a scorcher of a day and a fantastic experience!

We started with a  mass warm up – nearly 450 of us at the same time! (Mr Dean’s note – having 450 children stampeding across a field towards you is very unsettling). This got us into the right mood for the day and we get straight down to it with some skills based games!

Rugby can be a tricky sport – the ball is a weird shape and you’re only allowed to pass backwards, so the skills games really helped us to refine our technique and get some important practice in for the afternoon of games ahead. We also learned about rules specific to tag rugby – tackles are made with two-hand contact and the most important part of the game is good sportsmanship (something which I’m proud to say Levens had in spades!).

Having practiced a variety of skills it was onto the pitches to take part in a gruelling series of quick 5-minute games. We got to play a range of schools across the local area and managed to win more often than not! More importantly, everyone made sure to play fairly and work together to make the day a great success.

Many thanks to Kirkby Lonsdale RUFC (http://www.klrufc.co.uk/) for hosting and organising the day. We’ve definitely got some future rugby players in our midst!

Don’t forget to check out the photo album of the day for some awesome action shots!

NSPCC Speak Out! Stay Safe!

 in Whole School by

This week, the NSPCC visited school to talk to children from Reception up to year six about the right to feel and be safe.  We learnt about all the things that can make us worried; about identifying our trusted adults; about different forms of abuse; and most importantly about where to get help.

Take a look at the Childline website for some useful support and valuable further information: www.childline.org.uk/kids.

 

Exploring the Theory of Evolution and Genesis!

 in Church / Scafell / Whole School by

Scafell have been asking big questions this week!

Our topic in RE this term has involved exploring creation stories from different religions and cultures; and comparing them to the Christian story of Creation found in the Old Testament, in the book of Genesis.  We have also looked at the findings of great scientists, including: David Attenborough, Stephen Hawkings and Charles Darwin.

We invited Sarah from NISCU into school.  Sarah is a scientist and a Christian. She talked to us about how it is possible to believe in the scientific theories explaining the beginning of the world whilst also believing that God began this sequence of events.  She really got us to think about these big questions and ideas in more detail with some fantastic props and activities that included: dominoes, party poppers, mystery feely bags and an animation showing the theory of evolution of millions of years.